A Hollywood theatrical adaptation of classic manga/anime Akira was previously thought to be safely cancelled, but now it appears Warner Brothers has reanimated the project, and it is set to shamble forth from the grave, for release in 2011, with a sequel already on the cards…

According to my source, screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, guys whose work I like, are about to turn in their version of an “Akira” movie and the reason why the project has been so quiet is they’ve been hard at work trying to get the script right.

For those that aren’t familiar with their work, they wrote the amazing adaptation of “Children of Men” and they’re also credited with “Iron Man” (although a lot of that movie was written on the set). But my point still stands that I like their work and I’m happy they’re taking a crack at it.

Also, while I couldn’t get a lot of info about what changes are being made from the anime to make the feature film work, I did confirm the story is still set in post-apocalyptic Manhattan in the near future. I also confirmed the famous motorcycle is definitely a part of the film, but that bit of info shouldn’t surprise anyone.

From what I could gather, the movie is still a priority for the studio, and if the script meets with approval from key people, the movie could go into production in 2010 with a release date in 2011. Also, this isn’t going to be some mid-range budget movie. If the film goes into production, it’s going to be one of those BIG event movies.

Of course, everything I just wrote is based on a lot of factors, but that’s where the project currently stands. Anyone hoping for an “Akira” live-action movie should cross their fingers that Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby’s screenplay is great and everyone involved gets excited. I’ll have more on this story as I hear it.

Lest you forget, this is set to be a Dragonball-esque Hollywood star vehicle (Leonardo DiCaprio was rumoured to be involved), now set in New Manhattan and looking set to dispense with every aspect of the original, save its big red bikes and gang violence.

With the chances of a character called “Akira” even appearing in the feature looking slim, it seems obvious the only objective of the project is the usual ferocious cash-in of the kind of quality IP Hollywood so desperately lacks…

DieHardjagged said:
.. shall i laugh?
Its not like this could EVER surpass the Anime Version.
Now whats next?
Keanu Reeves = Kaneda?

Meh, like the anime version could ever surpase the manga 😉

By your logic, that shouldn't have been made either ^^

Really the point is, that with true commitment to the original and with enough funding, it could be excellent. However Hollywood is all about cheap, quick and americanized, which give the rightful impression that this'll be another major cock-up 🙁

Interesting to read that the live action film is supposed to be adapted into 2 films from the manga (each covering 3 volumes) rather than the anime. So we could be looking at the first movie adaptation of the FULL manga story. Which certainly sounds interesting at least.

Excellent news. I cannot express my glee over this as I have never thought of Akira as anything special. I hope that some day I can to the dismay of other people start talking about the movie adaption everytime someone is being frothmouthed about manga/anime which has passed its best by date ages ago.

Fist of the North Star. Dragonball Z. Also, video game movies suck because the adaptors don’t take them seriously even though pretty much everyone under 30 has now grown up playing them. What do you expect for something like anime that has settled down from the boom into a largely kids’ niche over here?

I bet you ten to one that Kaneda gets renamed to Akira over here so people don’t complain the title role doesn’t get enough screen time.

New Manhattan…..to me, AKIRA was and is inherently Japanese. Even though there is little information about the title. It looks like it’s on track to be “molded” (butchered), by Hollywood and spoonfed to an audience it sees would be too uncomfortable with something “different,” from the usual “hero saves the day” fare.
How much do you want to bet the famous last line of the movie is completely and totally lost in this remake?

Uh dude, most of us here knows what Akira is very well, and it’s one of those truly crafted masterpiece that comes once in a while. And i think it IS YOU who don’t seem to know what really is happening here. I really advice you should do some homework regarding about how bad Hollywood is when it comes to doing live action adaptation of series like this.

Seriously we need an official petition to cancel this movie. No matter how much we whine that won’t help us save this epic masterpiece. We need a revolution!!! I call for a petition against Warner Bros!!!

That’s really the thing. We over here in american just want to make something already successful, and then see to it that we want other americans and their american ways to watch something not american as an american project so we in america can make it a bit more “original” (saw how that worked when DB was supposed to be about goku as a crazy young boy in his wild adventures in high school!). So yea in american we automatically believe we have the answer to it all. This dosn’t even have to go for anime adaptations, look at all the shitty game adaptations we do here!!!! >_<

me too. the DBZ movie was going to be shit because DBZ is one of the worst anime of all time anyway. but an Akira movie has a lot of potential, especially if it’s being done by people who care about the source material.

The original screenwriter Gary Whitta had written his screenplay based on the manga, and thus it included Akira and everything. I bet these two new faggots are going to throw that away and base it on the anime, and it will be pure shit.

Send those fuckers a spam of mailbombs before the’re able to proceed or a whole new genre of shitful anime rapes will begin to please the brainles US teenagers. Get back to watching your superhero junk fuckers.

I wonder what makes ‘these types’ of movies so hard to make. Because they’re originally animated? Because it’s set in Japan? Or because people are only thinking about their pockets? What if the entire Akira movie was reproduced scene for scene with live-action? Would it be the worst still?

Nowadays, CG sucks, but it can provide any type of unrealistic footage needed. We’ve seen movies with post-apocalyptic cities and such. Changing it to New York(Manhattan); Are people afraid of looking at or talking about cities in other countries?

Yes, I believe the problem is in their pants. People are too greedy to care for simple enjoyment of watching movies. Their wallets are the only thing they think of. I’m appalled. Those people, the ones who grew up in times of epic masterpieces forever known, reject our happiness so they can wipe their asses with $100 bills.

Guys, you're all being far too negative on this issue. I'm sure Kaneda would look good as a strapping white kid with blonde hair. And Akira could be played by SamueL, that'd surely be an instant classic and extremely hip-cool. As for the little blue kids, call them Martians 🙂 That way we've got something to kill. And the special powers they had could be caused by gamma-radiation from a failed experiment!!

Seems to me as if we're well on our way to another epic masterpiece, can't wait to see what Hollyhood makes of this!! ^^

Let me tell you how it’s going to be played out. Somehow, Akira’s going to be this whiney teenage kid in high school and will hook up with this chick who happens to be a badass. Then they end up prancing around a bit, go through some american melo-drama and kiss at the end after somehow saving the world.

Well, it seems that Hollywood is set for another anime adaptation again. And all the Japs here are bashing hollywood because they are trying to make a re-make out of something that’s completely outdated.

With all of the changes they make in their “adaptations” they could have made the same movie without soiling the name of classic anime. If they had done that, movies like Dragonball Evolution may have fared better. As it is they try to cash in on the built in fan base and end up alienating said fan base.

Hollywood knows that they alienate the existing fan base when they do stuff like this but they hope that by shoving the fact that the movie is an adaption of a popular series into peoples’ faces that it will attract more people that aren’t familiar with it.

Except the Nodame Cantabile live action will probably be good? Since, you know, the producers have already shown that they are capable of making a live action adaptation that not only does the manga justice, but is even considered by some to be better than the anime?

And just how exactly is Akira outdated? The stunningly fluid and incredibly detailed hand-drawn visuals easily wipe the floor with 90% of what is being made today…

Why is everyone assuming this is going to suck? How many hollywood adaptions of anime series have there even been for you to draw the conclusion that anime adaption= suck? Stuff does get adapted into movies successfully, you know- the fact that video games routinely fail to do so doesn’t mean anime series have to suffer the same fate.

The fact that they even can’t get video game movies correct, doesn’t exactly bode well for translations from manga/anime into a regular movie.

Then there’s the aspect that some of the themes/images/actions shown in Akira work precisely because they connect to preexisting themes/images/actions found within Japanese society.

In order to get something to work for your own nation/culture, you’d have to make such changes, that you can no longer talk about an adaption, but about something that’s loosely based upon the source material. (Kurosawa did this quite well, I might add. Take a play by Shakespeare, twist and shift it until it becomes something that the Japanese will respond to, because it connects to their experiences. And he at least had the decency not to claim that his works were adaptions of Shakespeare.)

But that’s not what they’re doing, they’re claiming it as an adaption, which simply won’t work. See Dragonball Evolution.

If you’re too dumb to see why Americanization is a bad thing to do to a piece of work from a culture that has fundamentally different ideas of aesthetics, and is generally considered to be 100% incompatible with what appeals to an “American audience” by the very people that keep dishing out half-assed adaptation after half-assed adaptation, then you’ll probably going to enjoy the resulting brainless piece of blow-stuffs-up hollywood shit anyway, so all is good I guess.

Well, there is one Hollywood adaptation that was superior to the book: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (not the recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film).

Akira will join the putrid ranks of other adaptation failures such as:
Resident Evil, Silent Hill (BAD MOVE in making the main character a woman instead of Harry), House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, King of Fighters, Dragonball Evolution etc…
The next item up for the raping block:
Touhou. There is no longer going to be anything even remotely Yuri allowed in the story, all the danmaku will be replaced by alien artifacts etc… Heed my warning, it will come and it will suck!

Obviously you haven’t seen Children of Men, and understand why it’s now a big deal (especially for someone like me) that they are penning the script. So what if they have to change a few details like location (its being made for American audiences by Americans, more specifically, Hollywood). But I actually think now that this will turn out a lot better than now that Fergus and Ostby are working on it. Children of Men is probably one of the best post-apocalyptic movies ever made, and I think that style is more than fitting for Akira, if not perfect. In fact, all theyd have to do would throw psychic children into children of men and we’d have a pretty close comparison to Akira.

So i think the chances for this being totally awesome now is even better

Fergus and Ostby really just rode atop the sheer filmmaking genius of Alfonso Cuarón, a man so talented, he can even turn Harry Potter into a good movie. Children of Men is renowned mostly for its lengthy, single-shot sequences a.k.a. Cuarón’s trademark. Most of the film’s look, feel, and pacing was crafted by the Mexican filmmaker, not by two bumbling no-names.

I personally did not enjoy their screenplay for Iron Man, either. That movie was saved simply because Robert Downey Jr. made a wonderful Tony Stark. I still say this Hollywood version of Akira is a coin toss.

facepalmd.exe
now with a selection of items to slap with *hint* d*<!$ *hint*.

sigh…if I become an artist, the first strip of art I shall do will be how hollywood rapes things that should have been left alone.

Plot: hollywood discussing on what to rape next; as they exit the office, they go to visit the corp. sections; in one room they find Chun-Li tied to a pole while being rape X2; next they check how Silent Hill got the gender swap; then they head to Bolt (director) to see his new Bloodrayne 2 or 3 movie; finally they go in to they surgery room where Goku is straped to a table, trying to escape his trilogy innocence adaptation (V), while trying to snap out Vegita from his comma; saddly having the reserve sticker on his ass.